The Place for Daydreams
by Unsuspected
Summary: It had always been something of a tradition for Lily to visit the playground. The place for things lost and forgotten, the place for daydreams, the place for everything out of reach, it was her link to the magical world.


**Contains one teeny-tiny Pottermore spoiler. You've been warned. (Of course, it's so very tiny you probably won't even notice it, but I feel like it's my job to warn you anyway.)**

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><p>Lily had always liked the playground, the swings, the surrounding flowers. It was so open, so perfect for independence, so perfect for imagination that she couldn't help but be drawn to it. (Tuney didn't like it all that much for the very same reasons, but she still came sometimes to watch after Lily.)<p>

She could make wishes on the dandelions, and bring the dead tulips to life, and forget about everything else. She could get lost in the smell of the grass and the mulch and the daisies. And nothing else mattered, because she was so very at home in this make-believe sanctuary misplaced in the real world.

And Lily could sit atop the monkey bars and daydream all about a place where there were others like her, others who could leap across streams no one else could dream of, others who could fly farther from the swings than everyone else, others who dreamt about that far-off place where they would truly belong. She could stay there for hours at a time, completely lost in her thoughts, until Tuney shouted at her, "It's time to go, Lily!"

Then secretly after dinner, she'd go back to the playground, just to reemerge herself in the fantasy world that had captivated her from the moment the thought crept into her mind and blossomed into something so much grander, like the flowers Lily so loved.

And that one day, when her salvation finally arrived, when that nice boy from Spinner's End—Severus—had told her what she had always hoped. Lily Evans wasn't at all odd. There were others like her—witches and wizards (so maybe she hadn't expected to be called a _witch_, but once she understood what he had meant, she wasn't bothered in the least). It made sense, she thought, for her to find out here, the place where she had thought about it all.

Lily loved the playground all the more now, and visited it, much to her sister's displeasure, even more. How could she not, when each minute she spent there meant another glimpse into the magical world? She and Sev would talk for hours and hours, and Petunia would leave to find someone "normal" to talk to.

Lily would ask a thousand questions, and Severus knew the answers. It was as though every wish she had ever made had been granted by some fairy godmother (but those don't exist, Severus told her when Lily asked him). And for those all-too-short hours at the playground, it felt something like family.

"Lily, it's time to go home!"

Those words had always been the ones that cut their conversation short, right when Lily was about to ask something really important, or when Severus was going to speak.

"Sorry, Sev! Bye. Will you wait for me? I'll be back soon, I promise."

"Course I'll wait for you," he always said. "Why wouldn't I?"

And Severus never did seem to leave that spot on the edge of the playground, for no matter when Lily would return, he would always be waiting for her, mismatched clothing and all.

When they got their letters, it was no different: every day all summer, even on the rainy days when Mum and Dad and Tuney protested, they'd just sit there and talk, _almost_ part of the magical world they so wanted to join.

First year flew by, as they learned all sorts of magic that even Lily could not have imagined, but at the end of the year, when she rejoined the Muggle world, it was back to tradition, in a different sort of way.

Severus didn't seem to live at the playground anymore. He was only sometimes there, and he was much quieter. She would still ask him about more of the magical world, eager to know everything she possibly could, and he would answer when he could.

And then second and third and fourth years came to be, and ended in a flash. And with each end of a school year came the summer.

And with each summer came the playground. It was a tradition now, even if she was getting a bit old for it.

But Severus rarely came to the playground anymore. It was odd, of course, though Lily had been growing used to his staying away from her. It struck her as a bit odd, really, but he was Severus, and he wasn't many people's ideas of normal anyway.

So she still went to the playground every day, just in case he turned up. It was a reminder of nearly everything important to her. It held memories of Petunia, before Lily was nothing more than a freak to her sister. And it was her sole link to the magical world, while her school supplies were in her trunk ("None of that freak rubbish _here_!"). It was the place where she learned she was a witch, the place she had thought so much about when she could finally join others like her.

And after fifth year especially, it was her only remaining connection to Severus Snape, whose greasy head was seen thrice that summer, but never bothered to greet her.

The place for lost things, forgotten things, the place for daydreams, and for everything out of reach. Lily still visited, the Mudblood, the freak—whatever insults they threw at her, whatever curses they used, she would visit, because this playground was hers, and she wasn't letting go quite yet.

The summer after sixth year, she went every other day, because she was nearly an adult now, and she was supposed to be letting go of these silly childhood memories. (But not quite, she decided, because if she did that, she would be letting go of the entire magical world.)

The summer after seventh year, both she and Petunia were off to go live their lives on their own now, and Lily visited the playground one more time, and tried not to think of what's happened to the nice boy who introduced her to the world of magic.

She heard the car starting up, and the call of, "Lily, time to go!" and went to say goodbye to her sister, looking back only for a second before turning her head determinedly in the other direction.

The next time Lily Evans visited the playground, she was Lily Potter, and her father had fallen ill. She was telling her husband that she was actually _pleased_ with Petunia deciding to claim both their father's best suit in addition to nearly everything else in the house.

"Just imagine Vernon wearing it," she said, taking a shortcut past the swings to the forest they'd decided to Apparate from.

James Potter laughed, and said, "Going then, Lily?"

For once, she was glad to be leaving the place she had long thought of as home.

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><p><strong>AN: I really like Lily (what we saw of her anyway), so I hope I did her justice. I'm afraid I'm not all that witty, so it's always awkward when I attempt a joke, no matter how hard I try to improve it. My apologies for that. I know in the books she was said to be very funny, but <em>I<em> am not. Hopefully you enjoyed anyway. Thank you for reading.**


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